The present disclosure relates generally to a system and a workstation for, and a method of, deterring theft of a product associated with a target to be electro-optically read, and, more particularly, to discouraging a criminal practice known in retailing as “sweethearting” in which product theft by a retail employee occurs at the workstation.
Point-of-transaction workstations employing laser-based readers and/or imager-based readers have been used in many venues, such as supermarkets, department stores and other kinds of retail settings, for many years. In authorized usage, a retail employee slides or swipes a product associated with, or bearing, a target, such as a bar code symbol, in a moving direction across and past a window of the workstation. The readers electro-optically read the associated target over a field of view, identify the associated product, and the workstation processes a transaction involving the identified product, e.g., its purchase. In unauthorized usage, a dishonest employee may bypass the workstation in a criminal practice known in retailing as “sweethearting,” which is the unauthorized giving-away of a product without charge, or at a reduced price, to a “sweetheart” customer, e.g., a friend, a family member, a fellow employee, etc. For example, the dishonest employee may deliberately pass the product outside the field of view, or may deliberately point the target away from the readers, or may deliberately place his or her thumb or hand over the target, all to prevent the target from being read.
To prevent such retail loss, common countermeasures include the physical supervision of the employees, the use of CCTV surveillance cameras, the checking by security guards of customer receipts at exits, and the installation of loss analytic software in a host server that monitors all the workstations. The loss analytic software may track which employees may ring up unusually high amounts of products known to be attractive to thieves, may track an unusual number of price overrides and exceptions, may track an unusual number of refunds or gift cards, and may track an unusual number of product voids, etc. However, the loss analytic software can only track what data is manually entered by the employee, and what targets have actually been read by the readers, at the workstations. The loss analytic software cannot track any target that has not been read, and thus cannot monitor all types of sweethearting activity.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to reliably track when a target of a product being passed through a workstation has not been read, and to discourage such sweethearting activity.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions and locations of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.
The workstation, system and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.